No drama. No surprise. Pierre Poilievre won without breaking into a sweat. So what else is new?
After last night, or maybe today, the good voters of Battle River-Crowfoot will probably never see the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada again, except on television. That may or may not be a blessing, but few will mind either way.
You could describe last night’s result in the by-election campaign to elect Mr. Poilievre in the sprawling electoral district northeast of Calgary and southeast of Edmonton as anticlimactic, except that no one in their right mind should ever have thought there would be much of a climax.
This was a done deal the instant Battle River-Crowfoot MP Damien Kurek politely stepped aside to make way for Mr. Poilievre four days after the 2025 Canadian general election in which Mr. Kurek had been resoundingly re-elected at the same moment his boss was being humiliated by Liberal Bruce Fanjoy in his Ottawa-area Carleton riding.
Well that’s what happens when you represent voters who live near Ottawa and you take coffee and doughnuts to the insurrectionists occupying the capital city.
And yesterday’s result is what happens when you re-play the same campaign in the safest and most uncritically Conservative riding in Canada – or maybe the second safest, I forget – a place where actual dinosaurs once roamed and their counterparts in the political dimension still do.
Despite the best efforts of a surprising number of well-known political commentators to spin this yarn into a horserace between Mr. Poilievre and local independent candidate Bonnie Critchley, it wasn’t and was never going to be.
That may explain why most Alberta commentators were so bored by the whole affair. Their colleagues from other provinces might have gotten their knickers in a twist about what a great insurgent campaign Ms. Critchley was running, but the locals for the most part knew better.
This may have amounted journalistic malpractice in a few cases, but for the most part it was the triumph of imagination over intelligence, and as the clock ticked down to last night, of hope over experience, as the great 19th Century wit Oscar Wilde said of first and second marriages.
Ms. Critchley’s slogan – This is Our Home, Our Riding, implying quite correctly that Mr. Poilievre was a carpetbagger of sorts – could have been a winner … in Edmonton or Toronto or even in Calgary. But out there along the Battle River – they call ’em the Badlands for a reason – it was doomed to go pfffffft.
Last night it did. Moments before midnight, Elections Canada showed Ms. Critchley with 4,252 votes or 9.9 per cent, to Mr. Poilievre’s 34,280 or 80 per cent. Liberal Darcy Spady had managed to break into four figures with 1,876 votes, or 4.4 per cent. The NDP’s Katherine Swampy has 905 votes at that hour, or 2.1 per cent. I’m not going to bother listing the other 210. Final numbers will be available from Elections Canada today.
As for those optimistic souls who thought that if only Mr. Poilievre could score a few less percentage points than the 82 per cent Mr. Kurek accumulated on April 28, the knives would be out for him among his perpetually disaffected base, that was never going to happen. In the event, he was close enough for government work, as they say.
Even the presence of 214 names on the ballot – most of them, like Mr. Poilievre himself, from away – failed to add much drama to the affair. Most of them were from the so-called Longest Ballot Committee, and their goal was to protest against Canada’s single-member plurality electoral system, better known as first past the post.
I’m sure their presence, requiring the use of non-standard write-in ballots, only set their cause back a few years.
Uninspiring as the campaign was doomed to be, lots of people in political life will be delighted.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Liberals, who were good sports and made it easy for Mr. Poilievre to get back into his subsidized Ottawa public housing at Stornoway as quickly as possible, obviously see him as so disagreeable that he is bound to be a disaster for the Conservative Party.
Conservatives will for the most part be delighted too, if only because they won’t have to organize another leadership campaign just yet and, in the case of the MAGA radicals who are Mr. Poilievre’s most ardent supporters, because they can count on him to continue to pursue the extremist agenda that the Liberals believe will put off most Canadians.
The Alberta separatists who infest Conservative circles in Alberta will be pleased as well, hopeful that now Mr. Poilievre is MP for a riding where they have lots of influence, they can push him to support their ambitions for Alberta sovereignty association, outright separatism, and 51st statism. Canadians being Canadians, this does not necessarily bode well for Mr. Poilievre either.
CORRECTION: The Liberal candidate is named Darcy Spady. Mr. Spady appeared with the wrong first name in an earlier version of this post. My apologies. DJC
Well I suppose some journalists needed to try make the race seem interesting, not many other elections happening in the dead of summer. However, the outcome seems to have to its predictable end.
The Liberals and NDP did not gain despite having solid candidates. Ms Critchley got close to 10% which is quite respectable for a candidate who was an independent, but hardly threatening to Poilievre.
Also, enough voters figured out how to spell his name or close enough. It would be interesting and probably quite funny to find out all the variations of spelling used. I’m not sure what the long ballot people accomplished other than annoy a lot of people. Although perhaps as Oscar Wilde once said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all. At least they got some attention.
Now that Poilievre is the most prominent Alberta MP he will have to quickly learn how to stadfle the separatism issue. This will be far more tricky than straddling a horse. I suspect any hint of support for separatists may be even more unpopular in Ontario than bringing donuts to the convoy protesters.
While Poilievre did fall slightly short of his predecessors level of support, it is probably close enough to not worry many in the CPC. So this will not give them more cause to get rid of him. This may make the PM doubley happy. There is a reason this was one of the fastest by elections ever.
It is disappointing PP won the election. Chrichley would have been so much better and so much more civil. Now we all have to listen to PP carry on like the nasty piece of business he is. It was so nice and quiet with out him. While he was out of office the first piece of leg. was passed quietly and quickly. If PP had been in Parliament it could well have carried on for some time while he insulted anyone and everyone. There is nothing nice about PP. Obviously parental units didn’t teach him much about how to be polite. Of course they may have tried and he simply didn’t understand the concept. The Liberals have been good sports, called the election in a timely manner. It is doubtful PP will ever act in a similar manner. He doesn’t seem to understand “nice” can go a lot further than being “rude, undisciplined, nasty piece of business”. He comes across as a thug. Now I’ve known thugs who were charming but even that PP seems to have missed out on. saw him on the news this evening saying we needed fewer people living in Canada so we can expect him to be whipping up negative attitudes towards immigrants. He will be in keeping with the positions trump and maga have taken up. He might want to pay attention. This country is made up of immigrants. wonder what group of immigrants he will focus on first? Here in Nanaimo they have been recruiting new medical staff. Recently heard three doctors were being interviewed, one Brit and two Americans For those of us without doctors or nurse practioners we’d really like those people to feel welcome and not have some freeloader in Ottawa living in taxpayer’s funded housing making any of them feel unwanted. We don’t need a leader of the opposition carrying on with his b.s.
Isn’t his spouse an immigrant?
Battle River-Crowfoot got what it deserved.
EXACTLY
After he stops sniffing his pistol and risk blowing off his nose Mr. Peepers ought to ask his fifty-two Ontario MPs how they feel about Alberta separatists breaking up the country.
Who writes these articles, overweight feminist with blue hair! Being new to politics sucks for you to write such a bashful piece. Bonnie had no platform and she was very negative on the campaign trail. The longest ballot clowns did their best to try and sabotage another election with Pierre running, which goes to show you how desperately scared they are of Pierre. The liberal party now will have to face him in the HOC and Carney will be under a very hot light, the way Trudeau was. Remember elbows up and trump is all of Canada’s issues this past decade.. You people need to really wake up and stop falling for the propaganda..
Have a great day.
Thanks, Lizzie! Every day is a great day when commenters call me an overweight feminist with blue hair. You nailed it! But I guess I should change my pronouns, eh? On a related topic, Mr. Carney, in my opinion, has nothing to fear from Mr. Poilievre. But we’ll see, I am sure. DJC
Oh, dear. The MAGAt bots of Alberta are programmed to hate women, people who are overweight, older women, older women who are overweight, feminists and did anyone tell Thin Lizzy that the last woman to use Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing on her hair is probably about 130 years old by now? Not sure what any of this has to do with you, but I sincerely hope the cheapo who sent them gets an upgrade. Pure gobbledygook and bunkum!
Abs … “the last woman to use Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing on her hair is probably about 130 years old by now” … So about the same age as me, then? DJC
I agree with your comment that Carney has “nothing to fear from” PP. He is a nasty piece of business and has nothing positive to say about anything. He slams the Liberals but he doesn’t have a solution for anything. He frequently sounds like Trump in training and I for one would not risk having him as P.M. His attacks on immigrants are not something we need. Don’t know why PP is so angry and nasty all the time, but perhaps he might want to get professional help.
@DJC,
I think you’re probably talking to a bot. At least, the comment is chock full of all the same generic language and punctuation mistakes that bots, make.
Read it out loud.
That’s OK, B. It’s so seldom an old geezer like me gets misgendered that it’s sort of a thrill, even if it was only a bot trying to insult me. DJC
Like Jake Thackeray’s song about the criminal man who hid in a convent disguised as a nun:
“It’s true she shaved more often than the other sisters did”
Dear Ms. Lizzy, Ms. Critchley has a very well thought out agricultural policy on her web page as far as this veteran farmer is concerned. Speaking of veterans, I think it is very disrespectful to bad mouth an actual combat veteran, as Ms. Critchley is. Especially when she put her life on the line for Canada in Afghanistan, one of the most hostile and dangerous places on this earth.
Falling for the propaganda?
That is what conservatives do very well. The reason for this article is exactly because we do not fall for your propaganda.
Lizzy ( D) solo…
Well first of all Thanks for the laugh, picturing our host with blue hair was quite amusing to say the least. But seriously though….
Fact check —
—If it was colored, it would probably be orange, you obviously missed the bio photo.
—you also missed the plan that Bonnie Critchley had printed and out before PP deigned to show up in BR-C in his cos-play cowboy outfit.
—if by negative you mean she was stating facts, then the
truth hurts, because I never heard her say anything that was false, which cannot be said for PP and his supporters who were posting falsehoods on social media along with personal attacks.
— the Cons never said anything about the previous longest ballots when it happened in other ridings, I believe there’s been 7, and I fail to see why you think that they, who are not associated with any party would be scared of PP who was scared to run in Ontario where he owns 2 homes while living in the 3rd ,courtesy of the taxpayers and A. Sheer.
—elbows up and trump for the last decade??? Say what?
Elbows up was started by Charlie Angus after Trump first started his barrage on Canada, and impo you and Christy really have to get over your obsessions with the “former” Prime Minister.
The sock fetish is really a bit embarrassing at this stage.
Wake up? You people can’t make up your minds, first it’s your woke, now it’s wake up. Sad!!
Lizzy Solo
Apparently you aren’t like my true conservative friends and I who aren’t dumb enough to give a fake Conservative, Reformer, another chance after he praised criminal convoy truckers and Donald Trump for the Billions of Dollars they have cost Canadians. Showing the Conservative Minded citizens of Ottawa no respect for kicking him out doesn’t make you look very smart does it?
Have you enjoyed watching these Reformers cheat Albertans out of $1.2 trillion by destroying Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate tax structures starting with Ralph Klein and why haven’t you tried to help us true conservatives stop it, or don’t you care about what it’s doing to our children and grandchildren’s future?
Edited for accuracy:
The longest ballot clowns did their best to try and sabotage another election with Pierre running, which goes to show you how desperately they LOATHE Pierre.
You know why people say mean things about Pierre Poutine ? It’s because he’s a bad person. He’s got a bad electoral record. His entire political career has been that of hatchet man, beginning under Stephen Harper, who is without a doubt the worst and most destructive PM in the history of the country. The reason this Will never translate to a winning electoral strategy is that only a small minority of disaffected cranks like yourself is ever going to vote for these jackals, because we’ve seen their true face. Keep parachuting in new leaders cpc, I’m sure the average Canadian can only remember half of the NINE (?) you’ve had since Harper (?).
Just taking the time to fill you in as you mentioned you are new to politics. If you can’t handle people saying negative, mean, or even rude things about your candidate of choice you may want to stay out of the kitchen as they say.
By the way attacking someone’s character rather than their argument (as you’ve done here) is called an ad hominem and people are going to call you out on it constantly; because it illuminates your complete lack of an argument.
Hope that helps.
What a waste of money for taxpayers.
The electoral automatons of Battle River-Crowfoot have spoken, and once again they’ve elected a Conservative with a huge super-majority. I hope they’re happy with their new absentee MP.
Is there any other riding in Canada with such lopsided, nearly-North Korean, levels of support for any other party, or is this phenomenon unique to Alberta and Saskatchewan conservatives?
I simply don’t understand these people. *sigh*
Congratulations to Bonnie Critchley on a valiant effort. She ended up with 9.9% of the vote, finishing second, and beat both the Liberal, Darcy Spady, and the New Democrat, Katherine Swampy, who both presumably had some level of party machinery behind them.
The voters of Battle River-Crowfoot got the MP they deserve.
I look forward to the same people whining that “[the] government doesn’t listen to them.”
Western Alienation !!! This is proof Alberta votes are worth NOTHING. Federal parties know the outcome of any election and do NOTHING to woo Alberta voters. They elected this doofus.
When asked, 9 out of 10 will say Ottawa does nothing for them. They say look at what happens in Ontario and Quebec and don’t correlate that their votes go to the party that gives them what they want and need.
He’s from alberta. So is the prime minister. What are you even talking about guy. The leader of the federal government, the leader of the federal opposition are both from alberta. Stephen Harper, who created PP, came out of alberta ; what alienation ?
Typo alerrt: The Liberal candidate’s name is Darcy Spady, not Greg Spady.
Thanks, Peter. Don’t know where that “Greg” came from. I’ve written about Mr. Spady before. The story has been corrected and a correction published. DJC
I’m sorry, I couldn’t even focus on the article DJC.
All I can see is that gawdawful photoshoot.
Cowboys, on horses, blowing the smoke off their guns like they’re heroes in a John Ford movie. How cringe can a politician, get? How Americanized?
Is Poilievre about to ride off shooting down the Apache while cattle herding then going full Brokeback Mountain? Rock Hudson in “Giant” gutting Texas cattle ranchers’ living by installing oil wells?
Maybe it says everything we need to know about him and his pals? Lawless, white supremacist, greedy genociders?
What IS the message, here? Does he even know?
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
Excellent reference!!
McRocker: Thank you for pointing that out. I missed it the first time past. Well done, B! DJC
Meh. Hilarious that Millhouse is taking a victory lap after “winning” the most conservative riding in the most conservative province in Canada. The cowgirl looks like the lady at the pony rides, ready to grab the reins and return the horse to the step stool he used to climb up on it for the photo shoot. Even the horse looks unimpressed.
B…what is the message?
It’s a pop quiz.
–There are 4 horses a___s in the picture but 3 horses, how do you tell them apart.
And besides he had so much time on his hands on Monday, since he couldn’t do photo ops of himself voting, he was off doing what he’s actually good at , playing (?) the part of an outlaw and thief.
My only concern is that someone gave him something other than a cigarette lighter, or maybe that’s what happened to the hat……lol
What I noticed was the men were on horses and the woman is not. She is left standing on the ground. It says a lot about PP’s attitude towards women. Lets not forget, he was part of Harper’s gang and the first thing he did was defund the federally funded women’s organizations.
Agreed by to my eyes, it looked like Pierre was about to fellate his prop pistol. My bad.
C’mon, guys. It was just a little kiss. DJC
In an interview with CBC’s ‘As It Happens’, Damien Kurek, the Battle River Crowfoot MP who stepped down so Pierre Poilievre could run in the by-election, said he intends to run in Battle River Crowfoot in the next election.
This really begs a lot of questions. First, of course, is where will Pierre Poilievre run in the next election? It also makes me wonder why Mr. Poilievre didn’t just run in his next riding this time?
Since Mr. Kurek seemed comfortable announcing his plans publicly, I think we can also assume Pierre Poilievre must have assured Kurek it would only be for one election cycle, when he asked Kurek to step aside. If so, will Poilievre keep that promise? Is it out of concern that he won’t that prompted Mr. Kurek to announce his plans publicly?
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/damien-kurek-byelection-1.7611931
Bob Raynard my friends and I are wondering the same thing ? Was he paid, or offered to be paid, to take a break from politics so Poilievre could win a seat? Wouldn’t we like to know what the truth is? As a late lawyer friend would have said, “Haul his ass into court where he can’t lie to you and you will have the answer”.
Bonnie Critchley took a fun shot at Pierre Poilievre after he appeared on horseback in the Calgary Stampede parade, when she pointed out how he was hanging on to the saddle horn the whole time. In David’s photo above, Mr. Poilievre’s saddle horn appears to be handless, but then the horses aren’t moving, either.
The whole thing reminded me of Jason Kenney trying to fill a gas tank.
That man cannot ride a horse. Saying this with a fair amount of confidence; that woman is standing as close as she is so she can grab the bridle if anything goes wrong; I would wager that’s her horse and everyone who took place in that ridiculous photo op cowboy cosplay should be ashamed of themselves. PP is allergic to dirt, no way in hell that boy knows how to ride a horse.
Another few years of living in taxpayer-funded housing (and a staff of servants) for little PP. Nice. A man who has never had to actually work for a living is now free to leech off the taxpayers for a few more years while adding to his gigantic, obscene fully guaranteed pension.
Who famously built SIX units of affordable housing when it was his portfolio. Housing crisis for thee, rent free for me.
No surprises indeed the locals counted sheep.
The Chihuahua has been unmuzzled..again..oh joy!!!
15,000 less people voted than in the federal election ….
From FB: “for a man who thrives on big numbers and big slogans , 80% suddenly seems small.
—so here’s the punchline: winning in BR-C with less than Damien Kurek is like bragging you came in second in a one horse race. ” I concur.
Nice picture, I guess only the menfolk ride horses and carry guns, the womenfolk walk and clean up.
The one positive may be, as you point out, now that PP represents a rural Alberta riding, let’s see how he handles the 51st staters. That may not play as well with the big city folk.
That’s correct, Middle Dave. My great-great granny had to walk behind a covered wagon across the American plains and she did it barefoot. Only later when she’d just had a baby and the family was on the move again did she get to ride, and that was only because the baby was sick. That time she got to sleep in the wagon instead of under it.
I could bore you with tales about how the baby grew up and took his own family north because of ongoing typhoid outbreaks, which is why his parents’ generation decided to move west in the first place, but then I’d probably end up in present day Alberta. BTW, that origin story also involves a trip to Panama, mules and cattle trading. Like I said, it’s back to the future, more of the same. Nothing ever changes.
Sailorbob
While the Angels are singin’ his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place
My suspicion is that it’s the lady’s horse and that she helped him got on and off.
So lil PP showing an AI generated image of him, Pat King, Tyson Billings and Tamara Lich on his facebook page? Say it ain’t so!
Rural Albertans elect a member of the Laurentian Elite as MP. Film at 11.
I watched his vote percentage go from over 87% to about 80%, dipping below it sometimes, but he had 80.4% at the almost end. There is still one poll that has not been recorded as of Tuesday afternoon, I wonder what’s up with that?
The turnout was high for a by-election I think, 58.8%; PP got 40,548 votes and Bonnie Critchley got 5013, almost 10% which is pretty respectable. It was good to have someone expressing old-fashioned but good ideas about democratic representation, to at least make some people think about it.
Val…if I remember right, I read earlier that the turnout for the federal election was 76.5 %, so 15,000 less people voted. This could construed in a number of ways, but as was said it still didn’t add to the “big” victory for the 20 yr politician, vs the unknown independent who was running a PRINCIPLED campaign funded by like minded people across Canada . She was the one who was actually qualified to be parachuted in, unlike the Stornoway Squatter.
Again Bonnie, Thank You for your service to your country.
Once again we see Albertans proving how stupid they. So dumb they only vote for the word conservative and to stupid to realize there is nothing conservative about Poilievre and these Reformers.
Where else in the world could you get away with polluting their land with abandoned oil wells, rendering their land worthless, and have them give you a huge margin in an election. Poilievre is likely laughing his head off at how stupid they are, I know the Klein I knew would have been.
The American oilmen I was involved with were right Albertans are the dumbest people on the planet aren’t they? They continue to show their own children and our children and grandchildren no respect for the massive debt these Reformers have created for their future and they aren’t smart enough to care about it, that’s how stupid they are doesn’t it?
Good for Bonnie Critchley for scooping up the banner representing sanity and running with it. Short lived as it was. Eighty percent, big deal. Running a sack of deer horns in that riding would get those numbers. On the plus side, the people in that region will never see His Nibs again.
Next up for Alberta is a potential teachers strike which Smith may be praying for as it will distract from her Covid vaccine lottery, measles, health care scandal and other screw ups too numerous to mention.
What a circus and the photo very well reflects the quality of this individual species.
After all the time he was living on political welfare he did not change the slogan type garbage. Came out swinging the same songs, just like Brezhnev type rhetoric. The same cassette he had memorized while Trudeau was still prime minister. Did anyone miss him? I do not think so, not even conservatives.
I don’t think that PP is the right man for the job. I’ve watched him in the Harper days and he came across as entitled. Judging the election he lost, to the election that he was handed, the safest C riding in Canada, I still see a self entitled career politician. Maybe if he actually had a real job and worked, before stepping into politics, he would be on the side of Canadians, rather than on the side of his party.
We need electoral reform now!!! If you lose your own seat in your own riding your time in office ought to be finished!!
No matter if you’re the party leader. You’ve been voted out!! What a betrayal of democracy this garbage system of corruption is!!!
PP should move to hickville Alberta and stay there. That is where they needed a byelection to get him elected again.
You wanna avoid places like these they are straight out of Deliverance.
The sad thing about Poilievre’s bi-election run is that he personally had no other options, having literally done nothing but politics all his life. He was that kid in junior high with the brief case. Losing in Carleton must have been an existentially terrifying experience for him.
The good news is that’s the last time PP come to Alberta. If he does come he would have to go visit his riding. The few clips I saw of him campaigning in BRC showed him as a fish out of water.
What was so disturbing to those of us who tried to write Letters to the Editors warning the people about how dangerous this Reformer Pierre Poilievre is they refused to print our letters.
It’s obvious that the people weren’t smart enough to figure it out showing no respect for the intelligence of the citizens of Ottawa.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
This image is very unsettling, since at last one commenter confirmed what the horse back riders were holding. I initially thought that I was wrong on what I thought they were holding, surely an image, whether real or photo shopped or AI generated, of the the individual planning to resume his role as the leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition wouldn’t be showing what I thought I was seeing.
This photo shows what would appear to be a potentially very unsafe action. One that would never be taken by professionals. Very poor judgment. And it certainly is not funny either. if that is the intent.
Christina: This being Pierre, they were probably cap guns. DJC
I didn’t even notice the guns ! It’s a tiny picture on my tiny phone. Someone should tell those clowns waving those things around to try to intimidate folks is the sign of a true coward. Oh rural alberta, so scared of so many things…
Bird: My own thought seeing that photo – other than the need to preserve it on a server that the Conservatives don’t control – was that one should never point a firearm anywhere that one doesn’t intend to discharge it on the famously practical grounds that “empty guns can kill.” Could just be a toy, I suppose, to go with his toy sheriff’s star, but even so, the principle stands. He appears to be pointing it right at his head whilst blowing (don’t get excited, dear readers) smoke. DJC
Picture label:
Blow PP! Don’t suck!
Spot on: “… a place where actual dinosaurs once roamed and their counterparts in the political dimension still do.”
A brown paper bag carrying blue horse droppings could run and win in almost any rural riding in Berta……..yee ha…..just ask Harper…….
My goodness! For the So Many of you blowing off Pierre as a “zero”, the Incredible FEAR leaching from your words resonates otherwise.
Mr Poilievre will soon and systematically dismantle the “Carnival Clown”. This will be fun
Both are corporate billionaire backed …….so all this division and deception is by design……its a masterful stroke in which the ultra wealthy will always get off………..clean up aisle Berta……